The Art of Natural Dressage

Split from Romy's introduction topic!

Hello Romy,

I just red your introduction I find very intresting You r a cleaver girl and very open. That's very good when u live with ur horses, coz u need to be
I think sometimes people belive they know everything because they can do very impressive things with them horses but I think nobody knows who is right and who is worng... Keep ur relationship with ur horses in the way u like if u feel happy and if ur horses feel happy too

I don't know if u know what I mean?

_________________
"Training a horse is not only gaining his submission as it is often said.
It is also making sure the horse takes pleasure in doing everything that is asked of him"
Nuno Oliveira

http://myspace.com/alexandracmoa

Hi Alex, I think that I know what you mean and the relationship is most important for us. But because this has become so normal for us to be together, I sometimes have problems with all this "don´t train but only focus on the relationship" that is so widely spread in the NHE forum. It seems so unnatural to me. With my friends or family I also don´t think about the effect that every action might have on the relationship. I think that this might not be the best thing for your authenticity. Of course, without a relationship you can´t do anything. But when you have a relationship, you will always have to improve it, but I feel that I need some additional things to do...

Oh yes of course! other wase ur relation ship would very boring, doing every day same things are very boring, u have to build new goals! I totally agree!!! U have to see until where u can go. That's right sometimes u don't know how to say things to ur horses because u have new goal and it's hard to make horses and yourself understand new exercises. U have to make new experiences!

_________________
"Training a horse is not only gaining his submission as it is often said.

It is also making sure the horse takes pleasure in doing everything that is asked of him"

Nuno Oliveira



http://myspace.com/alexandracmoa

Hi Romy,

I finally got to read your introduction. Your horses are very lucky to have found you. You knew intrinsically the value of relationship above all else so I think you are very advanced in your horse journey.
Best wishes,
Kim.

Thank you very much, Kim!!

The relationship... yes, of course I know that it is most important. But at the same time I think that this is so clear, so that I don´t feel like writing about it all the time. I know that we often get dismissive remarks from another forum, that AND would focus on exercises too much and neglect the relationship part in our members' posts. I can´t speak for all, but in my case this is true. I do neglect the relationship part in most of my posts - because firstly this is so basical that I forget to think about it most of the time and secondly because that´s what I have with my horses at home and I don´t feel that I need the internet to discuss how much I like them, how very special they are for me and how much we trust each other. What I do need this forum for is to learn more about training dressage. And to be inspired every day by all those wonderful stories from our great members.

That's interesting! I didn't even realise they discussed us that much.

For me the only goal of any training session is to make the pony happy, happier than he was before the training. And exercises are just such a big part of that, as they are opportunities to praise and reward and let the horse become more aware of his abilities, his body and of his own input. I guess that part of the misunderstanding is that maybe in NHE they still define 'exercise' as 'I say what you should do'. But in our training with the ponies, exercises are things that the ponies make up on their own, after which I explode with joy , put a cue on it and then we have a new exercise. And then we can refine it further, or combine it with other things and make new combinations.

During my last months at the NHE forum, a member (American?) posted a post with the conversation she had in Russia on NHE with Alexander and Lidia. It was posted in the School, so sadly not everybody was allowed to read it, but the interesting thing was that at one point Alexander asked her what NHE was about according to her. She replied that it was about the relationship between human and horse and all the spiritual and emotional things surrounding that, and Alexander reacted very strongly against that. He stated that NHE is about training horses physically into the collection of the Haute Ecole, nothing more or less.


For me that was a real eye-opener. It made me realise that the NHE forum due to the absence of A himself has actually left the original thoughts behind NHE. In the NHE School section you won't find a single instruction or educational topic that covers collection or haute ecole exercises. I think that the NHE forum focuses so much on relationship instead of the training that NHE is really about, because they just don't receive the right instruction to rise above that bonding level. When I asked questions about training piaffe, or the place of sideways movements in NHE training, the standard reply was that I focused too much on the exercises, that instead I should work on the relationship and that if our relationship would be good, the horse would do all the exercises anyway. Which simply isn't true, because you still have to tell your horse how a piaffe looks like, or at least stimulate and reinforce him when he does one. And in NHE, in Alexanders absence, the information on all this simply isn't given, and searching for methods on your own isn't accepted either (only if you do the exact opposite ). So the NHE School members are left with what they do know about, which is the bonding with the horse and the relationship. In their current ideas they actually contradict what Alexander himself says in interviews and videos (for example not just about the meaning of exercises, but also about the relationship between man and horse, and about dominance)

That's not good or bad, but that's simply how their forum has evolved. The NHE-forum has evolved it's current ideas on horses because of very specific forum-technical circumstances which don't have to do anything with horsetrainnig itself. But the main problem is that their ideas don't match with those of Alexander anymore. I don't know if the interview is still open, but for me it was a real eye-opener.

I think the only thing important about relationships in AND is beeing truly (TRUE-LY!)respectful to your horse. The way you do this is different with every combination. To be resepectful you have to develop a way of communication and a way you can express mutual happiness, opinions and warmth.
Well this is also different with every combination. To me this is different with every one of my horses. When you set your "thing" with your horse as an example to others you can easily bring another person on a wrong path. You just can't copy the way of interacting from one combination to the other. AND is about really seeing and feeling what is there (live) and let all other presumptions, assumptions and examples go. To me this is to the extend that when a horse would become pink to express a feeling I would not be surprised and just see this for what it is With Evita a way of expression is about focussing and having fun and with Atreyu the same expression is about "I'm going to bite your head off"

To feel your horse.... this can't be learned by examples... it just has to be there. Sometimes it's nice to share but indeed, It comes as natural as breathing to most of us here. So why make a big fuss about it

_________________

Thinking about it.. I guess you reach the moment of "flow" with a horse. When you can do this... it just is...

_________________

True, very much!

I have a very different relationship with Blacky than with Sjors, simply because they are two very different ponies. In the past I tried to approach both of them in the same way because that was the way of method X - and always came to the conclusion that if it worked with Blacky, it didn't work with Sjors and the other way round.

I know that in the NHE forum I sometimes felt quite ashamed of my posts and also my diary because I always wrote what we had done today, what exercises we played with or because I asked questions about a certain movement or exercises. Guilty, because the general opinion in the School was that you shouldn't focus on exercises because they would happen all on their own if your relationship was right.

But now I realise that everything we do is about relationship. The entire balance (or struggle for ) between focused work and play is about the relationship, the question if you're going to focus on the shoulder-in today is about the relationship. Even a piaffe is mostly about relationship. Not because when the relationship is right, the piaffe will happen, but simply because of very down-to-earth questions.
Does my horse like this exercise or not?
Does he need me to make this exercise more fun, or does he want to do other stuff instead?
How can I make it more fun/exiting/calming/relaxing for him so that he likes it even better?
What does my horse want to do: one short question for two steps, or would he rather work on it for five minutes?
What should I do if he doesn't want to do piaffe after my question?
Should I ask for a piaffe, or should I wait untill he offers it on his own?
And even: can I ask for piaffe today or not?

You can only answer these questions if you really know your horse and yourself. And the thing is that you probably don't know yourself enough to answer these questions when you start with this exercise. Because you started training this exercise, you start to think about what this exercise means to you, and what it means to your horse, and how you respond to that. Both your response and that of your horse, will tell you loads about both your state of body and state of minds. And you will probably never find an answer to those questions, but you will get to know each other better and better with everything you two explore together.

Exercises force you to step out of your comfort-zone and let go of your assumptions about your horse, you and your relationship. Instead it shows you what really is there, and what you and your horse need to learn in order to go beyond that together.

Yes, and exactly this is what I mean when I say that I see the relationship as the basis for everything. For me it is not an entity by itself ("relationship vs. exercises"), but as a mental state only becomes visible in conscious or unconscious actions, the relationship shows itself in every piece of our work. It´s not only the precondition for our work, but our work IS (a part of) the relationship.

Lovely discussion!



I like this (and many other comments) very much. I felt that I could find the relationship within the exercises as it was a way to show Cisco (my only horse when I started at NHE) that I was doing things different.

Just spending time with him and not doing exercises was more of a PROMISE that I was changing, but within the exercises themselves was where I could show him that my promise was true.

Nicely said, and very true!
I just wrote something like that somewhere else over here, (forgot where) and it's great to see that others come to the same conclusions! We Are Not Alone!

I can't agree more with you: when you just sit with your horse, you show your horse that he's protected against you because you don't ask or do anything anymore. But the real challenge is to prove to your horse that you won't hurt him - by doing things, making decisions, mistakes and learning from them. It's easy to be calm, focused and friendly when you are lying in bed, planning the day ahead. But the real challenge and also lesson lies in staying calm, focused and friendly during your every-day life, with all it's chaos, questions and crazy suprises. The latter is what our horses demands from us, not that we spend our days sleeping! (They would starve, for one )

What a wonderful quote! There are several large streams in psychology which emphasize the role of action and especially social interaction for the development of the mind. It is not a one-way street and as much as all the actions with the horse depend on the relationship, the relationship can only evolve through the actions that are done together. And exercises are just such a wonderful way of acting together and establishing a relationship.

Oh - I'll have to finish this tomorrow! I see I have missed a lot!! But I really just HAVE to take care of my poor kids and poor husband now....

Great - I made it today anyway... Lovely discussion! I have nothing to add at the moment, only thank you all for the words...